Finding the Answers
by mswriter07
Summary: Penning needed to know why. His best agent had gone rogue and no one could tell him why. He was out of options maybe the head of the BAU could offer some insights as he was out of options.
1. Chapter 1

Two files landed on Aaron Hotchner's desk and Aaron looked up at the person who dropped them. Agent Penning said, "You have a minute?"

Hotch looked around his office and said, "Yeah. Sure."

Penning sat in the chair across from the other agent and said, "Sorry about barging in here. I'm Agent Mark Penning from the LA offices. I need your help with those two files."

"Nice to meet you Agent Penning." Aaron flipped open the first file - Federal Agent Brian O' Conner. He skimmed the first page and looked at Penning, "You have a rogue agent running with an ex-con skipping through countries south of the border?"

"Something like that. He was injured a few months ago catching Arturo Braga as a UC. The ex-con still had a warrant for his arrest from truck jackings he performed five years ago and he didn't run after our agent was injured. Then after his sentencing hearing Agent O' Conner broke him off the transport bus and they've been on the run for about two weeks."

"And your agents can't catch them?" Aaron asked with a raised eyebrow.

"We're still trying to find where they've been and where they're going but I'm here because I want to figure out why O' Conner and Toretto are doing what they're doing. Toretto is the only person he's let go and done everything possible to keep out of jail."

"Okay I'll call a few of my team members and we'll look over their files and figure out why things are different with this subject."

"Thank you. Here's my card. Call my office or cell phone if you need anything or have a theory." Penning stood up and handed his fellow agent his business card.

Hotch shook his hand and said, "My team doesn't do theories so when you hear from me it'll be a definite answer."

"Good to know." Penning said with a small grin. Hotch returned the smile and Penning left the office.


	2. Chapter 2

Aaron skimmed through Brian's file some more and decided that he and his team would start with the _how_ question. How did Brian O' Conner end up working the Toretto case? Aaron grabbed the files off his desk and went out into the bullpen and saw Rossi and Reid sitting around a meeting table; the rest of the team was out in the field gathering evidence for their current case.

Reid looked up and saw more files in Hotch's hand and asked, "Is that from the other agent that just left?"

Rossi looked at Aaron and said, "What do you got for us?"

"Agent Penning wants us to try and get into these peoples heads and figure out why his fellow agent is now on the other side of law. I figured we could start with the how question. Not a lot of information in his file on his past so we'll have Garcia find the information to get a better picture."

"Start from the beginning Hotch." Rossi said as he motioned to a chair between he and Reid.

Hotch sat between the two men and opened Brian's folder - he kept Dom's closed for a reason. "This is Agent Brian O' Conner…" Hotch relayed everything that Penning told him and saw the looks on their faces as they studied the picture.

"And this guy was their top UC agent? He'd be recognizable ten miles off." Reid replied.

"Well when they aren't expecting him he could blend with any crowd and fit into a lot of age groups depending on the op he's in for." Rossi said.

Hotch added, "He's an excellent officer and agent until it comes to this man, Dominic Toretto. We have to figure out why he never arrested him in the first place and why he orchestrated a jail break off of a transport bus to their destination - Lompoc."

Reid made a strangled sound and asked, "That's the person we're trying to figure out? He's a legend, especially after this daredevil stunt. I should've recognized the names immediately."

Hotch and Rossi looked at Reid expectantly. "What do you know Reid?" Hotch asked.

"They were all over the news when the breakout happened. Remember I was too sick to come in that day and we were busy with the hitchhiker case with the three women. I totally forgot about this until now. Brian has always had a knack for UC, partly because of how he grew in a broken home, mostly living on the streets in his teen years. Then he gets sent to Juvie when he's fifteen for boosting cars and scrapes out of high school but has seen enough of the prison system that he joins the police academy and blows through all of their entrance exams so they have to take him on as a cadet. He finds the organization as a whole to be like his adopted family so he blends in, catches the eye of a sergeant Tanner, and he becomes this guy's protege…"

Hotch interrupted by clearing his throat and watched Reid stumble to a halt in his monologue. "Why didn't you tell us any of this before now?"

"It wasn't really necessary or pertaining to any of our cases."

Rossi looked at Reid curiously and asked, "When did another fed become your obsession and from the west coast at that?"

Reid swallowed and said, "I'm not obsessed with him. I looked up information after I saw all the news footage. He's not in any social media, that's to be expected as he's an undercover agent, but he doesn't have anything else online either. All this information that was available I hacked into the LAPD and looked at his FBI profile that's public to someone with a high enough clearance like us."

Rossi looked up at Hotch then and raised a brow. "We'll have to talk to Garcia about teaching him how to hack into things."

"Let's get back on track. Plenty of time for squealing and rambling later." Hotch said and he looked at Reid pointedly. Reid sat perfectly still and nodded.

Rossi, bless his heart, was thankful they were focused on each other as he rolled his eyes at their antics in a nice professional manner at that. He got his mind back on track and said, "I'll call Garcia and tell her what's going on. You two start a profile of your own on this ex-agent."

Thirty minutes later, Rossi came back to the table with a few printouts in his hand and Hotch asked, "What do you have?"

"A journal entry that his Sergeant decided to keep on file, partly because it intrigued him and he could go back and reread it to see if he could crack O' Conner."  
"How did he get ahold of something as private as a journal entry from Brian?" Hotch inquired.

"He said Brian gave it to him and he put it in his file." Rossi said as he sat back down at the table and looked over Hotch's and Reid's notes. Neither had much passed what they were discussing before he left the room but that was forgivable. He hoped the journal entry would be useful to them.

Reid held his hand out and Rossi handed over the warn piece of paper and the doctor skimmed the entry for relevant information. "He had a buddy in Juvie, Roman Pearce. He seemed to always be looking after Rome because of his temper. No one really liked him talking either, Rome that is, Brian knew what he was doing."

"Does he mention where this Roman Pearce ended up?" Hotch asked as he tried to look at the paper in Reid's hands.

"No. They haven't talked since Brian left Juvie and entered the Academy." Reid stated.

"Maybe Brian feels guilt over not being able to save his friend so when he meets Dominic Toretto he makes certain choices and keeps his friend out of cuffs." Hotch said.

Rossi agreed. "Guilt is a good answer and that one seems the strongest contender so far so we'll write it down and change it if something else comes to light as we examine his friends."

"That sounds good." Reid said as he went back to reading Brian's file for the twentieth time.


	3. Chapter 3

Rossi picked up ex-con Dominic Toretto's file and flipped through it. "The question now to answer is what. What did Dominic Toretto do to Brian O' Conner that O' Conner would throw away his law enforcement career for Toretto?"

"With everything that happened between them five years ago and then their meeting at some races for a Cartel leader named Arturo Braga, which they recently caught and put into prison, former Agent O' Conner seems to gravitate towards Mr. Toretto. Here in the files for both men has his sister, one Mia Toretto telling the police how during O' Conner's undercover operation to catch her brother with local interstate truck jacking that her brother owned O' Conner."

"And what is your question Reid?" Rossi said.

"No question. Just stating facts." Spencer said as he pulled Dom's file closer.

"What do you think she meant by owning him?" Hotch asked.

Rossi rummaged through a few papers and said, "These two seem like they're magnets to each other. They'd been living completely different lives and would've been fine if they hadn't met but they did. As a result, they rounded out their connections and now - any time apart seems to hurt them more than help them. They both have their moral compasses about right, wrong, lawful, unlawful, et cetera but everything they've done has been to protect the other and make sure they didn't get caught."

"But O' Conner did get caught - twice." Reid said.

"Extenuating circumstances. The FBI and Customs needed his expertise." Hotch said.

"Which…?" Reid deliberately left off the other half of his question.

"He's a master at going undercover. He can fit into almost any given persona you give him." Hotch said.

"And what will happen if we can figure him and his friend out?"

"Most likely they end up going to federal prisons for leaving the country and everything else that they've done." Rossi said as he looked over at Reid.

Hotch looked at his lover and asked, "You're not sympathising with these two criminals are you?"

"No. Never. But they've not really hurt anything or anyone except the government's ego."

"Sometimes that's all it takes." Hotch said and he sounded a little sad they would have to arrest the two but he had to uphold the law.

"So just because they show a strong sense of loyalty to each other, we have to rip them apart and send them to jail? I don't see any point in that when otherwise these two are law-abiding citizens." Reid asked.

"Let's get Garcia on the phone and looking for other connections between the two if there are any." Hotch said.

Reid nodded and got up to use the desk phone near the table that was in use for the case. Rossi just looked between his two teammates and saw they were both fighting against being sympathetic with their subjects. He gathered as much about the subjects as his own teammates in the last hour and he hoped they made the right decision. He decided to wait till they had the full profiles on the subjects before he proposed what they were going to do. He'd seen the dimension that they were missing ... and he was an old romantic at heart.


	4. Chapter 4

The three men were hunched over their files, making notes and reviewing the information they had when the desk phone Spencer used to call Garcia rang shrilly in the silence. Reid hit the speaker and said, "Hit us Garcia."

A small chuckle answered Reid's response and he glanced at his teammates. "Who is this?" Hotch asked in his FBI voice.

The voice on the end of the line laughed again and said, "You must be the insurmountable leader SSA Aaron Hotchner? Nice to finally meet you. Too bad I was in the LA offices during my stint."

Aaron looked between his co-workers and found Rossi eyeing the phone with curiosity and Reid barely containing his whole being. Aaron wanted to speak to Spencer, but instead he reached for his hand and put his finger to his mouth. "Yes this Agent Aaron Hotchner. Can I get confirmation that we're speaking to Brian O' Conner?"

"The one and only. I'm going to guess my old boss brought our files today."

"That would be correct." Reid answered evenly as he tightened his hold on Hotch's hand.

"Just so you know, none of what's happened was recent. This has been years in the making and we finally had our chance." Brian knew it was a confession of sorts but he figured it was more on the fact it was love than any crime.

"We've gathered that. Now when will we be able to have a face to face?" Rossi asked as he knew that Hotch nor Reid would ask the question.

"Probably never unless we're pardoned to come home." Brian said with steel lacing his words.

"We'll see about that. Now why did you contact us?" Hotch said.

"To check in with you guys. I hear your team is pretty good." Brian laughed.

"My team is the best. We'll find you and justice will be done."

"I don't see that happening. Now you guys have fun with your profile. I've got a race to win." Brian said.

"When we find you, you'll be singing a different tune, maybe that of a federal prison." Hotch threatened.

"Good luck." Then the connection went dead.

Reid shut the phone off and looked between Hotch and Rossi. "Should we be worried that he knows who we are and what we're doing right this minute?"

"Very." Rossi replied.


End file.
